Tom and Jan Ditzler survey Winnebago County’s destruction of their land.rnnionetan,- value on something that should be as invaluable as arnfamily member, or one of our limbs.rnWhen he wrote one of his finest poems, “Do Not BernAshamed,” Wendell Berrv was thinking not simply ofrnproperh’ rights but of the growth of a broader political and economicrntotalitarianism. Shll, his words are appropriate here:rnYou will be walking some nightrnin the comfortable dark of our yardrnand suddenly a great light will shinernround about you, and behind yournwill be a wall you never saw before.rnIt will be clear to you suddeuK’rnthat you were about to escape,rnand that you are guilty: you misreadrnthe complex instructions, you are notrna member, you lost your cardrnor never had one. And ou will knowrnthat they have been there all along,rntheir eyes on your letters and books,rntheir hands in your pockets,rntheir ears wired to your bed.rnThough ou have done nothing shameful,rnthey will want you to be ashamed.rnI’hey will want you to kneel and weeprnand say you should have been like them.rnAnd once you say you arc ashamed,rnreading the page they hold out to you,rnthen such light as you have madernin your historv will leave vou.rnThey will no longer need to pursue you.rnYou will pursue them, begging forgi’cness.rnThey will not forgive you.rnThere is no power against them.rnWhen the Cit}’ of Rockford came after the Torreses’ nrarket,rnthe Torreses did not defend their property directly; instead, the’rncried “racism.” Now, race may, in fret, have played a role, sincernthe community development director, the mayor, and the developerrnwho vill receive the land arernall black. But ultimately, race is irrelevant.rnWhat is releant is that thernTorreses have put their blood, sweat,rnand tears into their store, and theirrnstore has become a part of them.rnWhen Winnebago County camernafter his land, Tom Ditzler did try tornframe the debate in terms of propertyrnrights. Unfortunately, many wellmeaningrnbut misguided supportersrntried to convince him that the way tornkeep his land was to talk about itsrn”ecological significance” or the extremelyrnremote possibility that thernproperty contained Indian burialrngrounds. Wliile both of those may bernarguments for keeping the land pristine,rnthe’ are not arguments for keepingrnit his. The reason for keeping itrnhis is that there is no amoimt of moneyrnin the world that could possiblyrncompensate Tom for government essentially taking his sight arnsecond time, after he has spent 30 years regaining it (in a sense)rnthrough his inhmate daily contact with his land. For a so-calledrnpublic good, which is really just the private good of some politicalh’rnvell-connected developers, Tom Ditzler is being shut insidernthe box of his blindness.rnI saw Tom a couple of months ago at a party for SuzannernLee, a former radio talk-show host who had championed therncause of Tom and others like him. As he prepared to leave,rnTom reminded Suzanne that, when she first came on the air,rnhe used to call her program to take issue with some of the otherrncallers, who he thought were running down the country forrnwhich he had sacrificed his sight. “I used to tell them thatrnthings weren’t as bad as all that,” he said. “But now,” he conceded,rn”I’m afraid that they were right all along.”rnTom may feel shame; but if he does, it should be for hisrncountn-, not for himself He may have lost, but he still foughtrnthe good fight. He tried to keep his property from becoming arncommodit)’, interchangeable with the few paltry tax dollars thatrnWinnebago County will deposit in his bank account once thernquick-take case makes its way through the courts. But as I stoodrnthere listening to this veteran lament the fate of his country, I recalledrna passage from Wendell Berr ‘s book Home Economics,rnand I realized that America itself had lost something whenrnTom’s land was taken from him. As Berr’ writes:rnMillions of people . . . who have lost small stores, shops,rnand farms to corporations, money merchants, andrnusurers, will continue to be asked to defend capitalismrnagainst communism. Sooner or later, they are going torndemand to know why. . . . People, as historv- shovws, willrnfight willingly and well to defend wdiat they perceive asrntheir own. But how willinglv and how well will they fightrnto defend what has already been taken from them?rnI do not know the answer to Berry’s question, but I do knowrnthis: A regime that can make a patriot like Tom Ditzler feel betra’rned b}’ his country can no longer count on the unconditionalrnlovalh- of its citizens.rn16/CHRONICLESrnrnrn